Through the debates on Dr. Armstrong's blog site, one thing seems to clearly stand out now: UBF needs help. I will quote the following from one of Dr. Armstrong's articles on UBF.

"I have not reproduced every single word of this brother’s letter in order to protect him from any unnecessary personal misunderstanding and to cut out a few extraneous comments that might hinder the reader from hearing his primary points of concern. I have no doubt that he is earnest and that he has some serious points to be made that should be made and appropriately heard. I also believe there is, in his appeal, a word that UBF leaders should listen to and seriously consider in the days ahead. If he is wrong then they can learn much from him anyway. If he is right, in the slightest sense, then they can improve and correct excessive practices by hearing him out."

The problem is that the current UBF leaders must have sincere heart to listen. But I don't think this will happen unless they see that they need help. As we, the former members, all know, this kind of change in thinking in UBF would be like Copernican Revolution that UBF is not the center of universe or Dr. Samuel Lee is not the center of universe. As we were once taught to think in UBF, those who are active in UBF think that anything non-UBF is spiritually inferior. They might think that Dr. Armstrong's opinion is of lesser value than Dr. Samuel Lee's spiritual legacy. I am certain that they would consider it a compromise of their absolute attitude toward God's truth to listen to Dr. Armstrong or any outside expert more seriously than to stick to Dr. Samuel Lee's spiritual legacy.

The whole paradigm of UBF system was/is to listen ONLY to Dr. Samuel Lee. The bottom line of Dr. Samuel Lee's objective in UBF ministry was to make him the ONLY authority appointed by God like that of Moses', which the current UBF leaders continue to do so even after his death. Changing one's thought world is most difficult work. Just writing articles on blog spot and having conversation with leaders are not enough. I think maybe the UBF leaders need to be "trained" to think differently or correctly by using "divine" disciple such as making them walk 25 miles on bare feet or making them write 50 pages testimony critically evaluating Dr. Samuel Lee's method of making disciples. I think they might work since they are very familiar with those "training" received from Dr. Samuel Lee. But I think the UBF leaders wouldn't do that.

I think that the UBF leaders regard Dr. Armstrong only as their sheep who needs their help. Remember how UBF leaders think about local churches in America. Just read all the comments posted by UBF members on Dr. Armstrong's blog site. You will find general attitude of UBF members like the following I quote from comment made by a UBF member named Eric:

"I have been reading about the modern movement toward "seeker friendly" churches that continue to water down the Gospel and the Bible to the point where it is trivial in order to attract people. My feeling is that instead of lifting up new believers the more pronounced result is to lower the standards and challenges of faith for everyone.

That is why I like UBF, although it is not perfect I feel I am challenged to focus on Christ and his word and to seek to obey Jesus."

With this kind of attitude prevailing among UBF members, what kind of attitude do you think the UBF leaders might have toward Dr. Armstrong's opinion about "UBF leaders should listen to and seriously consider"? Do you think that Dr. Armstrong's effort will work out ok to fix some serious problems in UBF or it will end up being used by UBF leaders only to improve UBF public relation?

Anyway I think I can still give some credit to Dr. Armstrong for writing articles about UBF to highlight that UBF needs some serious help to fix up their problems. I want to thank him for hearing us, the former members, even though we do not think it was good enough. But he works according to his own clear conscience before God and if we try to change that, we will be like the same people as UBF leaders whom we criticize for controlling sheep. Let's continue to pray for him and for the UBF leaders so that God's will may be done through them and through us also.